The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for repairing and/or replacing individual binding posts on a telephone wire connecting panel.
The purpose of the present invention may be easily seen by reference to the accompanying FIGS. 1 and 2, which illustrate the conventional mounting panel system as used in large telephone switching operations. The panel, generally depicted by the numeral 10 comprises a mounting board 12 of non-conductive or dielectric material such as Bakelite, phenolic, or resinous plastic. A plurality of binding posts 14, are mounted on the face of the board 12, in parallel sets 16, generally three binding posts to a set. As seen in FIG. 2, each binding post 14 comprises a threaded screw 18 having a square head 20 which is inserted in a correspondingly shaped hole 22 to be molded monolithically and integrally with the board 12. Once in place, the threaded screw is provided with a nut 24 to hold the telephone wire or wires 26.
Because the square heads 20 of the binding posts are molded in situ within the mounting board, the binding posts 14 are prevented from relative movement and are held in their given fixed spaced array. The square heads 20 of the posts lock in the mounting board 12 and thus resist torsional rotative forces applied to the thread of the screw 18 during the application of the nut 24 binding the telephone wires 26 to the screw.
However, it frequently happens that the screws 18 of the binding posts 14 will break along their threaded lengths, during the application of the locking nuts 24 or wire 26 to the post. When this occurs, the binding post is no longer useable. It also sometimes happens that the application of excessive turning or torsional force to the thread of the screw 18, will cause the post 14 to loosen in its mounting in the board forming an enlarged hole 22 as for example, in the central post 14 shown in FIG. 2. This leaves a space 28 allowing the central post 14 to fall freely out of the board resulting in the absence of a connection site for a telephone wire.
It is uneconomical to replace the entire connecting board merely for the sake of one of even a few faulty or broken binding posts. The boards themselves are extremely costly and the labor required for exchanging each and every wire connection, makes such replacement extremely prohibitive. On the other hand, simple replacement of the individual binding posts under known techniques is also not feasible since the binding posts cannot be simply glued or adhered to the board or remolded, as such processes might cause damage, not only to the post being repaired, but to adjacent posts as well.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide an inexpensive and simple method and apparatus for repairing in situ, and/or replacing, in situ, damaged binding posts, which overcome the disadvantages of the prior art.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a replacement binding post structure by which a new binding post can be added to the mounting board in place of the broken or missing binding post.
The foregoing objects, together with other objects and advantages will be apparent from the following disclosure.